December 2016 4

I’ll be honest – a foam roller saved my life. Not literally of course, but it did make a huge impact. Back when I interviewed Carrie Lucero of Road Runner Sports, we were talking about everything running related, and she asked me about foam rollers. I told her that I had never heard of a foam roller. She looked at me quizzically. Here we were, half-way through an interview, and suddenly she must have been thinking “This guy runs a fitness website and has no idea WTF a foam roller is?”

It was pretty embarrassing. But we continued with the interview, and I promised to buy a foam roller. She told me it would help reduce the IT Band issues that I was having. And after just a week, my IT Band issues were gone. And I have been a fan of foam rollers ever since.

How do they work?

Think of it as a self-induced massage. Rather than having a masseuse deliver targeted pressure to your muscles, you’re inverting the situation. You’re balancing your body weight on a small area (the foam roller), and that provides the necessary pressure. As contributor Anthony Harrell explained in his article, “Got Back Pain?“, when you’re using a foam roller, you’re performing a “self-myofascial release technique” (sounds pretty naughty – but we verified its SFW status). Over time and with excessive exertion, soft tissue (like muscles) become short, tight and sore. Massaging the tissue helps to lengthen and relax the muscles, which will help with recovery AND performance. All good things. But the most important thing is – it just feels good. The feeling is very comparable to hopping into the shower when you have poison oak. Scalding hot water on poison oak produces this bizarre feeling of both pain and pleasure.

The foam roller is a bit like that, but definitely dialed down a couple notches.

When Should I Use Them?

Before and/or after a workout. My IT Band would act like a dog that knew it was going to the vet. It would be fine throughout the day, but the second the running shoes came out – BAM – sudden pain. It was the weirdest thing. But spending five minutes on the foam roller, targeting the sides of both of my knees, as well as my hamstrings, really made a difference.

Youtube has a slew of videos that you can check out to target specific areas. For me, I have had the most success using it on my legs to target sore quads, hamstrings, and my IT band. I have found it to be less successful at alleviating tension in my lower back, but that might be an issue of form rather than an indictment of the roller’s effectiveness.

All that being said, the foam roller is a relatively inexpensive addition to your arsenal of recovery products, and if you’re regularly following our programs, you’re going to need one!

Buying Options:

Amazon has got you covered. Check out some of these options.

For more advice on injury prevention and recovery, check out the “Hotshot Fitness Rehab Kit” for our recommendations on products that will keep you #FireReady.

“Developing an “attitude of gratitude” is one of the simplest ways to improve your satisfaction with life.” ~ Amy Morin

How many times have you woken up before dawn, cold and sore from a hard day of cutting line, and thought, “F this job. F this life. I’m done.”

And then proceeded to have a grumpy, miserable morning that led to an equally miserable afternoon and evening?

When I was on the Lassen Hotshots, and you hit that point where everything was awful, we called that “Jelly Fishing”. With your hands outstretched, and complaints spewing freely from your mouth, you could singlehandedly kill the crew’s morale.

That kind of negative energy is bad for you, and its bad for the crew.

So stop it. But how?

The answer is simple: Gratitude, my friends. But what exactly is gratitude? Properly defined, gratitude is “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”

Researchers have documented the importance of gratitude on our overall happiness and well-being. People that take the time to focus on gratitude are healthier and mentally stronger.

I was shown this short film titled “Gratitude” by Louie Schwartzberg, and trust me, it will help refocus your priorities, and clarify your perspective. If I’m stressed or frustrated, I try to throw this on get some much needed perspective on what’s important.

Obviously it’s not always convenient to just sit down and watch a six minute video. But the next time you’re out on the line, and you’re dreading the start of the next shift, reflect on this:

As a wildland firefighter, I am fortunate because:

I am physically stronger than 99% of the population

I am mentally strong enough to do a job that scares most people

People dream about doing this job

The work that I will do today might save a life

I will see places today that very few people ever will. And they are beautiful.

I will experience a clear sense of purpose. I know what my mission is today.

The bond I have forged with my fellow firefighters is stronger than anything experienced by a civilian

I love what I do.

Amy Morin and Tim Ferriss, among many others, are proponents of daily journaling with a focus on gratitude. You don’t need to be churning out pages fit for the New Yorker. All that is important is that you take some time to remind yourself of all that is positive in your life. The relatively small, yet powerful, act of shifting the focus away from the negative stressors and towards the positive aspects of your life can yield major gains in overall happiness. You choose which path you’re going to take. You choose whether or not you’re going to go down a path cluttered with negative emotions, or if you will travel down a path filled with positive emotions. Choose wisely.

So the next time you’re sitting in the buggy, driving out of fire camp, pull out your phone or a notebook and jot down some things that you’re thankful for. Make this a daily ritual, and you’ll be a happier, healthier hotshot. Guaranteed!

Interested in learning more about the importance of gratitude? Check out these books:

Never heard of IFTTT? Well, boy oh boy, are you in for a treat today! IFTTT stands for “If This, Then That.” The site provides value by allowing geniuses and regular joes alike to come together and create ‘recipes’ that allow different services (e.g. Fitbit, Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, and hundreds of others) to connect with each other. You can think of a ‘recipe’ as just another name for an app.

As many of you know, Hotshot Fitness thinks highly of Fitbit products (in particular, the Aria Scale & the Charge HR). However, one of our biggest complaints was that the data it gathers is ephemeral. It vanishes into the ether after a week or two. So unless, you wanted to manually enter your data into a spreadsheet, you were S.O.L. Fortunately, IFTTT provides a way to store that information AUTOMATICALLY. By leveraging Google Drive, you can now store sleep logs, weight logs, and daily activity summaries to a spreadsheet. Now, if you wanted to say, visualize your weight loss efforts across a year, you could easily do that. Or you could run some statistical analysis on your sleeping patterns.

There are literally thousands of recipes, and more are added every day. It’s a great service that can help you not only achieve your fitness goals, but can also help you be more productive at work and home. Below, we have listed links to our favorite recipes.

IFTTT provides quite a few recipes for automatically pushing out goal achievements (daily steps reached, etc.) across a variety of social platforms. Please, I implore you: think deeply about whether or not to activate these. There’s a lot of noise on the internet – will this just be contributing to that noise? Or does it bring information that others can benefit from? If we’re being honest, I believe that I do not need to learn via Twitter that you hit your daily goal. Nor do I believe that anyone else does. Not your mom, your boyfriend, or your weird Aunt Liz from Omaha. So please use those social recipes with care.

Product: Fitbit Aria Wifi Scale

Price: $128.47 USD

Summary:

Some of you might think that launching a product review of a scale during the holiday season, right smack between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is a blunder, but I politely disagree. Now is the BEST time to get a scale, and begin making it part of your daily routine. Tracking your weight is an easy way to monitor your progress, spot trends (both positive and negative), and you can use it to track fluid loss during intense workouts. Here’s the thing, by hopping on the scale now, you know that the results probably aren’t going to get much worse. I’ve been using Fitbit’s Aria Wifi Scale for a couple years now and absolutely love it. It’s simple. It’s easy. It works every time. If you’re in the market for a new scale – I highly recommend this one.

Uses:

Weighing humans

Covering floor space

Pros:

Accurate to a tenth of a pound. A superior alternative to the old fashioned analog scales that littered the bathroom floors of your youth.

Measures Body Mass Index (BMI). Haven’t compared the BMI values to other tools, however, so can’t speak to the accuracy of its measurement. However, it is precise, and its consistency is useful in identifying trends.

Allows for multiple users and guests. How does it do this? Magic I’m sure. But it works!

IFTT Compatibility.IFTT = If This Then That. In case you’re not familiar, the site exists to make the services that people use more productive by connecting them. The Aria Wifi Scale can be programmed to transfer data (weight, date, BMI) to a Google Sheet. Which allows you to track your weight and BMI over time. Interested? Checkout the ‘recipe’ to set it up.

Reliability. I’ve never had an issue with it dropping the wifi, or crashing it. It just works.

Cons:

Delivers the truth. Even if you’re not interested in seeing it.

No Spotify Compatibility. Doesn’t allow you to play your Spotify playlists during the weigh-in process. You must endure the ten second weighing process in agonizing silence. Ok, I’ll admit, I’m really reaching here.